Spelling Bee contest ...what a joke! ( vent )

[Mskanga]

My fifth grader was in the spelling bee contest today , her first word was Midair , she spelled it middair .They told her to go sit down, then another kid fails a word, the same thing , go sit down. Then comes another one, gets his word wrong and as the examiner is telling him to go sit down , the kids says "wait, can I start again? " the examiner tells him everyone deserves a second chance and gives him a different word than the one he had given him seconds before. Then a few minutes later another kid is asked to spell brilliant and he spells briliant . The examiner gives him a second chance because he couldn't hear him , he claimed kids were talking but everyone in the back of the room heard the kid clearly.
I am not mad at the fact that the kids who got it wrong were disqualified, but how could he tell everyone deserves a second chance and only give it to two kids ? what about the ones he flunked before? didn'they deserve a second chance? What a joke!He could have given second chances to everyone or none.

 

[piratesmate]

I absolutely hate stuff like that! When I was teaching, my principal would do things like that all the time. (small private school) I know real life "isn't fair" but it seems to me that this just teached kids to be resentful.

 

[gymnasticsmom68]

Are you kidding me??!! I thought when I read the word joke, there was going to be a punchline, I guess the teacher is the joke.

 

[KristaTX]

A second chance in a 5th grade spelling bee ???? That's totally unacceptable. Geez, what a pushover for a judge .

 

[Pin Wizard]

That's not fair. It should be all or none. I remember a spelling bee in class and I got the word "spaghetti" and spelled it right! Hmmm...wonder what grade it was. I don't remember which teacher I had for that.

 

[Lanshark]

A few years ago my son came in tenth in the schools spelling bee. They were very strict with how the word was presented an how the word had to be spelled by the child. He missed the word congratulations. He spelled it "congradulations".

 

[Mskanga]

I'm not upset at the fact that kids were disqualified because they spelled words wrong , what I am upset at is the fact that the judge gave two kids a second chance. His exact words were, this is america and everyone deserves a second chance . I felt like standing up and saying, what about the rest of the kids? do they get a second chance?I didn't do it because there were six classrooms of kids there and didn't want to cause a scene, but he sure was not fair!

 

[monarchsfan16]

Wow. That's really awful. If the judge was going to do that to the other students he should have let the other kids re-try-BUT I really think he should have just disqualified all the wrong spellings from the beginning. And no life isn't fair. But there are rules and rules should be obeyed.
That rates right up there with the student who won at my school's spelling bee, even though she was getting the words right because her mother was in the front row MOUTHING the spellings to her! No one but oh, all the students and teachers noticed. The "judge" who was a teacher either didn't notice, or, what I believe, liked her too much to care.
LOL. I was only in one school-wide spelling bee. After that I purposely misspelled words at a certain point in the classroom spelling bee so that I wouldn't look like I was trying to get out right away, but also so that'd I'd get out soon enough to not have to compete against others in the school. Being on stage is not my thing.

 

[missypie]

I seem to remember that there was a huge row at this year's national spelling bee over rules.

As a parent, sometimes it's hard to let these things go. I still get mad over the softball tournament game that was decided by a really terrible call...that was 3 years ago, and I bet my DD (who was actually IN the game) doesn't remember a thing about it.